Category Archives: Splash Damage

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This week there’s a new developer profile over on Splash Damage’s site. This week we get a chance to meet Rav ‘ioli” Channa — who serves as their HR Manager. Rav has had a pretty busy year — bringing on new talent for the team currently working on a title we can’t talk about yet. You can read about some of their hires here, here, and here too.

Be sure to check her interview out. In the meantime here’s a snippet:

What are the best and worst parts of your job?I like challenges and my role is full of those so probably that’s the best part of my job. It’s about how I can make a positive impact on the company whilst still retaining the culture. I’ve also had the chance to get to know some seriously talented and interesting people so I’ve really enjoyed my time here so far!

The worst part of my job is dealing with tricky and often sensitive situations that arise in the workplace. It’s not an easy job but someone’s got to do it!

Here’s another look at what’s going on with our friends from Splash Damage.

Congrats are in order for Technical Director Arnout van Meer, who was recently honored by Develop Magazine — making their 30 Under 30 List that honors rising stars in Europe’s game development community.

Why did you join Splash Damage?I’ve always been a big fan of FPS games, so Splash Damage was the perfect fit. They were also probably the only studio making FPS games in the UK at the time, so it felt like an amazing opportunity to be able to work with them. The chance to share my own opinions of what makes a great Shooter and possibly see that have some affect on a retail game was really exciting!

That’s all for this week, but we’ll keep you up to speed on new developments at their office.

Since we’re busy working with London-based studio Splash Damage on an unannounced title (no, we can’t say what they’re working on…yet), here’s an update on some news out of their office.

The 2008 Mobius Awards for advertising have been revealed, and the Enemy Territory: Quake Wars’ site, Stroyent.com, was honored as this year’s winner in the New Media category. Stroyent is just what you need if you’re suffering from…ummm, projectile dysfunction. Be sure to check out the hilarious video.

Modders and aspiring game developers might be interested in reading the March issue of 3D World magazine, where Splash Damage artist Paul ‘MoP’ Greveson gives step by step instruction on how to skin and export a zombie model. Additionally, on 3D World’s site, Paul has video tutorials on skinning a zombie in 3D Max. Also featured in the magazine, animator Chris ‘Hauser’ Bull covers working with MotionBuilder to create animations based on motion capture data.

Finally, in their first edition of “Currently Hurling Controllers / Mice At” for 2009, members of the Splash Damage team discuss their favorite games of 2008. Hey, there’s even a few mentions for Fallout 3.

That’s it for now. In the coming weeks/months, we’ll continue to keep you up to speed on what’s going on at Splash Damage.

Splash Damage sent out a press release this week announcing Richard “Rahdo” Ham as their new Creative Director. With 15 years in the gaming industry under his belt, Ham will lead the design team for the yet-to-be-announced title that we’re working on with the studio. Prior to his new gig, Richard worked as the creative lead for Syphon Filter, and most recently as the Lead Designer for Fable 2.

In their latest staff interview, Jamie “Fishbus” Manson takes center stage. A level designer from Scotland, Jamie created the hugely popular cp_steel for Team Fortress 2. a map which was ultimately chosen by Valve to be included in one of the official game updates…very cool. Here’s a snippet from the interview:

What was your first gaming experience?

I remember having an Atari 7800 when I was a young â€˜un. I think my parents bought it for my older brother and themselves as purchasing an Atari was all the rage back then. Games like Frostbite, H.E.R.O and Dark Chambers still rattle vibrantly in my head, I also distinctly remember that Asteroids booted up if there was no cartridge in there! WOW!

I think my love for games, and indeed design, stemmed from when I first played SimCity. Once a fan, always a fan!

Elsewhere on SD’s site, they continue to share the games they’re playing. Community Relations Manager Steve “badman” Hessel gave me a heads up that one of their guys, Rich Jolly, became the first guy at the office to get all the achievements in Fallout 3. Nice work!

That’s all for now. We’ll keep you posted on what’s new at Splash Damage over the coming months.

I’m a Graphics Programmer at Splash Damage and, basically, my main task is keeping things up and running on console. This usually involves refactoring or implementing new specific code to get graphics features from the PC version working, multi-threading stuff to avoid nasty fights between the renderer and the rest of the world (and the game itself, even) and is generally loads of fun. From time to time I also get to write some shaders to break things up a bit.

We’ll continue to keep you guys updated on what’s happening at Splash Damage, and when the time comes, we’ll share details on what we’re working on with them.

Similar to our “What We’re Playing” blog posts — our friends at Splash Damage have a new blog post discussing the games they’re obsessing over. They may be across the pond from us, but looks like they’re enjoying the same games our team are busy playing: Fable 2, Far Cry 2, LittleBigPlanet, and even Fallout 3.

Why did you want to work in the games industry and how did you get started? Do you have any tips for people wanting to break in?

Mattias: I have always been a serious gamer. While always being into all sorts of games including role playing games, table top games and various card games, video games have always been a my main interest and hobby, and it never really occurred to me that I could work on creating games myself. But one day, actually the day after I took my exam in Media and Informatics, I woke up and basically said to myself, “Screw this, I want to make video games.” So I left my exam in the drawer and attended a college course dedicated to video games, which eventually got me a six month internship at Massive Entertainment in Sweden. I never really finished my internship though, because as soon as World in Conflict got green lit by Vivendi Games they hired me as a Level Designer. And that’s basically The Story That Is Me.

Last but not least, Splash Damage’s studio director, Paul Wedgewood (pictured above), has a new interview at Edge-Online where he discusses the studio’s future making multiplatform games. Here’s a snippet:

Why has this generation of consoles been ideal to expand beyond PC?

Paul: We’re at that moment where the PC, PS3 and 360 are aligned in terms of power for the first time in a really long time. So we can focus on developing technology where we only have to create maps once, a character once, and have them work for all three platforms. And that’s really convenient for us. What it means is that we can take all of our experience in what makes PC games so deep and compelling and so exciting, and translate that for a console audience in a way that they’ve never seen.

That’s all on the Splash Damage front for now. For more information on their studio, be sure to check out their website.

For more than a year, we’ve been giving you an inside look at some of our developers here at Bethesda. Since we announced a partnership with Splash Damage earlier this year, I thought you guys might want to check out the dev interviews they’ve been featuring over on their site.

With plans to increase the size of the team to more than 60 folks, they’ve still got some hirin’ left to do and you can head over to see a full list of the art, design, and programming positions they’re hiring for. They even have a 3D Art Test and an Environmental Art Test you can try your hand at to show you know your stuff.

In other news, Splash Damage mentioned they will be at Develop 2008, being held in Brighton at the end of the month. They’ll have a booth there and Studio Head Paul Wedgwood and Audio Director Chris Sweetman will both be giving talks during the event.

Finally, it’s worthy of note that Splash Damage is on the shortlist for several Golden Joystick awards for Enemy Territory: QUAKE Wars: Nuts All Nighter, PC Game of the Year, PlayStation Game of the Year, Xbox Game of the Year, UK Developer of the Year, and Ultimate Game of the Year. If you’re inclined to cast your vote, head to the Golden Joystick voting page.